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I like the concept of the map as a whole (Steel is an all-time favourite of mine, that might be why).

There are some serious improvements necessary to make it a regular map though.

First of all, there are paths and stairs and slopes everywhere. After a couple scrims and running around on my own I know the layout decently well now, but it just seems unnecessary to have this many cramped corridors. It feels like 18 people is too many and too few at the same time. Too many to easily make ground and actually control territory, too few to check for every flank. Also there are so many height differences that Scout, Soldier and Demo (maybe Detonator Pyro) might be having fun, but the rest has to use this stair, then that doorway, then that slope (all the while circling around a lot) to get somewhere.

While that makes flanking and getting picks easier, it also forces you to almost wipe the other team to actually make ground. This is because rotations are very quick to do, so the other team can actually walk around in a big ball of death. There is no real way to outflank them. We actually won one round in 27 seconds, but that was only because the other team didn’t find their way to last, not because it was too far away.

The layout idea is nice, but not enough. After I had found the banner/map (https://tf2maps.net/attachments/hadal_menu_photo-png.11889/) and looked around some, it was quite easy to distinguish the points from each other. Still, the whole map looks very same-y. I like what Steel did to work against that with having outdoor caps A, B and C, whiteroom, the pit on last etc.

The last point rising I am actually fine with. It gets less and less spammable and the possible highground advantages to defend/spam it decrease, so it makes sense.

I am always for trying out new maps and a ONC is great for that. Much better than that cp_reservoir disaster a few seasons back. And I got to appreciate the map more after a few matches on it.

TL;DR: It’s not as much “aids” as people claim IMHO, but it’s not ready for the regular season.

E was convoluted and a poor fighting area

I generally liked the map. It plays quite a bit faster than cp_steel and as a result rewards good coordination and rotations even more so than steel. With that being said, I think some changes have to be made for it to be played in the regular season. These include:

1. Making the map a bit more open in some places, make the choke points more open and remove some high ground areas. As a soldier I personally found it way too easy to spam around corners or from high ground where the enemy team couldn’t really do anything to counter me, so I often ended up wiping the floor off with them.

2. Both spawns have a lot of doors, but there are no signs showing where those doors lead to. That would be a nice addition. Also having signs around the map that show that going through are certain choke will lead to a certain area.

3. Making the areas aesthetically more different. cp_steel is really good in that regard – since the outside areas are very different from point E and/or whiteroom.

Other than that I think it’s a really well thought out map. As I said, I like how important quick rotations are in this map. The rising D point mechanic is very interesting as well, giving you a more significant high ground advantage every time you cap a point.

EDIT: Totally agree with Selek, just like cp_steel it might seems aids when you don’t know the layout of the map, but once you learn it, the map becomes very interesting to play. It’s a shame so few teams participated in the cup.

A lot of the information where to go and distinction between areas gets lost with an FPS config ( in this case Comanglia). I know that the creators prob want to see the map being played in its full glory, but for competitive there needs to be some optimisation and cleaning-up for these fps configs.

On the gameplay: I agree with what Selek said. First time we played the map we were horribly lost and we really didn’t like the map. The more we played the more we understood the map and had fun. In the current state it’s not ready yet for HL, but it’s an interesting map and I will definitely keep following up the progress.

The map was generally pretty fun, the map does give quite a bit of options to play on and teams trying to find different play styles was very interesting to see. Of course it does still have its flaws but most of them got pointed out by selek.

Just wanted to drop in and say thanks to those who participated. We’ve gotten a lot of useful data that we can bring back to the drawing board. we’ll definitely be looking to streamline the map as much as possible. some of the areas kind of are a mess as it stands, we had a vague idea of what needed improvements going in but this as confirmed many of those suspicions, we’ll definitely be changing many things around as a result